Press Release
Fairbanks Man Sentenced to 40 Years Imprisonment for 2023 Murder Committed While on Bail Release
November 21, 2025
(Fairbanks, AK) – Yesterday, Fairbanks Superior Court Judge Earl Peterson sentenced 37-year-old Wesley Cruikshank to 40 years imprisonment for the murder of 43-year-old Ashton Gasper-Scavette in 2023.
On June 16, 2023, Gasper-Scavette and his girlfriend picked Cruikshank up from a Fairbanks restaurant after he had recently been released from jail and drove him to their residence located in Two Rivers, an unincorporated area located approximately 30 miles outside of Fairbanks. Cruikshank and Gasper-Scavette were friends, the two having known each other for approximately eight years. Upon their arrival, large quantities of alcohol were consumed by all three throughout the evening. At approximately 12:46 a.m., Gasper-Scavette’s girlfriend saw the victim lying bloody on the floor and Cruikshank hitting him. Cruikshank then fled the residence. The girlfriend called 911, and Police and EMS arrived on scene. Efforts by the emergency responders to save Gasper-Scavette were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at approximately 1:29 a.m.
The Alaska State Troopers sent out an alert to Two Rivers area residents indicating that Cruikshank was wanted by them for Gasper-Scavette’s murder. At approximately 8:00 a.m., a man, after seeing the alert, called the troopers to report that Cruikshank had just left his residence. He indicated that he had found Cruikshank in his truck that morning wearing only bloody boxer shorts and that Cruikshank appeared disoriented at the time.
Troopers, upon receiving the notification, located Cruikshank walking down a road near the caller’s address. Some of the blood on Cruikshank’s boxer shorts and right toe would later be determined by the state crime lab to match Gasper-Scavette’s DNA profile. Fresh injuries were also observed on Cruikshank that were consistent with him being in a recent altercation. An autopsy performed on Gasper-Scavette would determine that the cause of his death was strangulation with a contributing condition being blunt impacts of the head, neck, trunk, and extremities.
At trial, Cruikshank testified that he remembered going to Gasper-Scavette’s residence the night he was killed but that he blacked out due to alcohol consumption and had no memory of any of the circumstances surrounding Gasper-Scavette’s death.
At the time of the murder, the defendant was on conditions of release after having been arrested for assault in the fourth degree on June 12, 2023. He was also on misdemeanor probation for a 2022 driving under the influence conviction.
At the conclusion of the trial, the jury returned a guilty verdict on the charge of murder in the second degree. The jury acquitted the defendant on the charge of murder in the first degree. Immediately prior to trial, the defendant entered a plea of no contest to the charge of violating a condition of bail release.
At sentencing, Deputy District Attorney Andrew Baldock, who prosecuted the case with the assistance of Paralegal Allison Watega and Law Office Assistant Emely Martinez-Jones, requested the court to impose a sentence of 70 years imprisonment. Cruikshank, through his defense counsel, requested the court to impose a sentence of 40 years with 15 of those years suspended, leaving 25 years to serve.
After hearing from both the prosecution and defense, Judge Peterson imposed a sentence of 60 years of imprisonment with 20 of those years suspended, leaving 40 to serve, and that the defendant be placed on probation for a period of 10 years following his release from custody.
CONTACT: Deputy District Attorney Andrew Baldock andrew.baldock@alaska.gov
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Department Media Contacts: Communications Director Patty Sullivan at patty.sullivan@alaska.gov or (907) 269-6368. Information Officer Sam Curtis at sam.curtis@alaska.gov or (907) 269-6269.